Sebastien Ogier and his eight-time co-driver champion Julien Ingrassia took command of Rally Finland on the first Friday stage, opening a lead that was never under threat. Ingrassia stepped in at the last moment for Vincent Landais who was absent for personal reasons.
“It’s been a very good day. Very tricky this afternoon, not so enjoyable, I guess, for anybody, but it’s good that we managed to come out of that,” said Ogier.
Despite opening the road, Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin ended the opening day in second position, 16.3 seconds behind the French pair. Evans was the big winner when rain fell in the afternoon loop, escaping the worst of the conditions to win stage 7 and jump into third position before passing Sami Pajari and Marko Salminen for second in the wet and muddy SS8.
Evans was fairly happy with his day. “I think, overall, the morning wasn’t bad from our side, of course. But the afternoon was a bit of a lottery in the end. I’m glad we managed to survive that because, of course, we had it better on the second stage of the loop, but then probably had the worst of it on the next. So, that wasn’t easy. Happy to get through it.”
Pajari ended the day in third position after a ding-dong battle with Adrien Fourmaux and Alex Coria across the morning loop, with the fight for second changing after each stage across SS4, 5 and 6.
Oliver Solberg and Elliot Edmondson hauled themselves back into contention after losing just under a minute when rain fell in the afternoon, battling with a misted-up windscreen which saw the pair drop to fifth before winning SS8 to scramble back into fourth.
Martins Sesks and Renars Francis held fifth at the end of the first day in their M-Sport Ford Puma after mastering the wet conditions in the afternoon, moving up the order as others faltered.
Fourmaux ended in sixth and the best of the Hyundai Motorsport trio after losing 1½ minutes as he faced the very worst of the torrential rain that fell in SS7.
Josh McErlean and Eoin Treacy came home in seventh after a steady run, 1.7 seconds ahead of Takamoto Katsuta and Aaron Johnston. The Japanese driver lacked confidence across the morning run but suffered a misted-up windscreen in the wet SS7 and dropped over two minutes. “It’s very difficult to describe my day. It’s basically a disaster day. It’s very unfortunate, but yeah, still two days to go and hopefully we get the better days tomorrow and the day after,” lamented Katsuta.
Thierry Neuville and Martijn Wydaeghe brought their Hyundai home in ninth after suffering broken left front suspension after a wild spin and hitting a rock hidden in the undergrowth. They dragged the wounded car to the end of the stage, repaired it with a spare part in the car and got back to service.
Robert Virves leads WRC2 in tenth overall where the category lead was held by Emil Lindstrom, who rolled in stage four, Roope Korhonen and Teemu Suninen before Virves re-took the lead.
The first casualty of the rally was Jon Armstrong and Shayne Byrne, who spun off the road and beached their Ford Puma in stage three. One stage later, Esapekka Lappi and Enni Malkonen had a high-speed roll after hooking a wheel in a ditch. The crew were unscathed.
Saturday features 125.7km of flat out rallying in the fast Finnish forests!
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